Related papers: Bandit Algorithms for Tree Search

Monte-Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) methods are drawing great interest after yielding breakthrough results in computer Go. This paper proposes a Bayesian approach to MCTS that is inspired by distributionfree approaches such as UCT [13], yet…

We describe a novel algorithm for noisy global optimisation and continuum-armed bandits, with good convergence properties over any continuous reward function having finitely many polynomial maxima. Over such functions, our algorithm…

The combination of multi-armed bandit (MAB) algorithms with Monte-Carlo tree search (MCTS) has made a significant impact in various research fields. The UCT algorithm, which combines the UCB bandit algorithm with MCTS, is a good example of…

In this work, we consider the popular tree-based search strategy within the framework of reinforcement learning, the Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS), in the context of infinite-horizon discounted cost Markov Decision Process (MDP). While…

By leveraging the representation power of deep neural networks, neural upper confidence bound (UCB) algorithms have shown success in contextual bandits. To further balance the exploration and exploitation, we propose…

Safety is a desirable property that can immensely increase the applicability of learning algorithms in real-world decision-making problems. It is much easier for a company to deploy an algorithm that is safe, i.e., guaranteed to perform at…

The Upper Confidence Bounds For Trees (UCT) algorithm is not agnostic to the reward scale of the game it is applied to. For zero-sum games with the sparse rewards of $\{-1,0,1\}$ at the end of the game, this is not a problem, but many games…

Many physical systems have underlying safety considerations that require that the strategy deployed ensures the satisfaction of a set of constraints. Further, often we have only partial information on the state of the system. We study the…

Contextual bandits are widely used in Internet services from news recommendation to advertising, and to Web search. Generalized linear models (logistical regression in particular) have demonstrated stronger performance than linear models in…

Monte-Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) is a widely-used strategy for online planning that combines Monte-Carlo sampling with forward tree search. Its success relies on the Upper Confidence bound for Trees (UCT) algorithm, an extension of the UCB…

Developing efficient sequential bidding strategies for repeated auctions is an important practical challenge in various marketing tasks. In this setting, the bidding agent obtains information, on both the value of the item at sale and the…

The upper confidence bound (UCB) policy is recognized as an order-optimal solution for the classical total-reward bandit problem. While similar UCB-based approaches have been applied to the max bandit problem, which aims to maximize the…

Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) is a best-first sampling method employed in the search for optimal decisions. The effectiveness of MCTS relies on the construction of its statistical tree, with the selection policy playing a crucial role. A…

Upper Confidence Bound (UCB) method is arguably the most celebrated one used in online decision making with partial information feedback. Existing techniques for constructing confidence bounds are typically built upon various concentration…

We study online fair division when there are a finite number of item types and the player values for the items are drawn randomly from distributions with unknown means. In this setting, a sequence of indivisible items arrives according to a…

In this paper, we propose and study opportunistic bandits - a new variant of bandits where the regret of pulling a suboptimal arm varies under different environmental conditions, such as network load or produce price. When the load/price is…

We consider Monte-Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) applied to Markov Decision Processes (MDPs) and Partially Observable MDPs (POMDPs), and the well-known Upper Confidence bound for Trees (UCT) algorithm. In UCT, a tree with nodes (states) and edges…

We analyze a tree search problem with an underlying Markov decision process, in which the goal is to identify the best action at the root that achieves the highest cumulative reward. We present a new tree policy that optimally allocates a…

We propose a novel variant of the UCB algorithm (referred to as Efficient-UCB-Variance (EUCBV)) for minimizing cumulative regret in the stochastic multi-armed bandit (MAB) setting. EUCBV incorporates the arm elimination strategy proposed in…

Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) has proven effective in solving decision-making problems in perfect information settings. However, its application to stochastic and imperfect information domains remains limited. This paper extends the…